


Wheat Byproducts

by Ace_pergers_Syndrome



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, But there'll be a lot of it, I mean not much to start with, M/M, No Smut, Welcome to Night Vale - Freeform, i can't write smut, wtnv - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_pergers_Syndrome/pseuds/Ace_pergers_Syndrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The oddities of Night Vale are no big deal to the people who've grown up living there, but one resident can't help but wonder what the what lies beyond their small desert community. </p>
<p>But leaving Night Vale is no small matter; especially when the love of your life runs a local bakery. When your heart is pulling you in two different directions, which way do you follow it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, first time writing a multi chapter fic! Written in the first person, I know some people don't like it but it's important to the narrative of the story. 
> 
> All comments will be read aloud into a machine to convert the sound waves into electrical energy, which will be used to power the artificially intelligent entity that comes up with my story ideas. Kudos have no practical purpose, but they will make me smile.

The midday heat of the desert had seeped into every inch of my body. I knew I should probably get up to turn the fan on but it didn’t seem like it was worth it. Not boiling alive was for people whose lives were going somewhere.

I’ve been lying on my bed since I woke up that morning, staring once again at the piece of paper resting on the nightstand. From this angle nothing written on the paper was actually visible, but by now the words had been seared on my brain forever. It was filled with a lot of technical jargon, but the overall message was fairly direct: Failed, again. 

This was the fourth time that I had taken the assessment to become a travelling agent for the vague yet menacing government agency. The fourth time I had failed. Somehow each time I had convinced myself that I could pass if I just kept trying. But I’ve been staring at this piece of paper for the last two weeks, trying to see anything but “failure” written on it and so far I had seen nothing. I had failed. I’m always going to fail, and I was going to be trapped in Night Vale for the rest of my life.

Ever since I was a child it had been my dream to see the world outside of Night Vale. To know what lay beyond our strange little desert community. But Night Vale wasn’t a place that could be left easily; the town had a way of pulling its own back in. And besides, I didn’t exactly have the funds to spare travelling the world. I thought that if I could get a job with the agency, travelling to other towns to gather intel, it would be my ticket out. But after four failed attempts to get into the agency, it was becoming clear that I wasn’t meant to leave this town. Obviously I just couldn’t- 

My thoughts were interrupted by someone knocking at my door. I stayed quiet in the hopes that they’d leave, but a moment later the door creaked open. 

“Hey dork.” Said a familiar voice, and despite the gloom that had settled into me I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. 

“Hey there, loser” I replied, not turning to look at him just yet. The end of my bed dipped as James settled down by my feet. Neither of us said anything for a while. He’s waiting for me to talk first, I thought. James was like that; he never tried to make you talk about what was bothering you. He just waited with you until you were ready to say what you needed to. He didn’t have to wait very long this time. 

“I’m never going to get out of here” James still didn’t say anything, but he rested a hand on my ankle letting me know that he was there. “I’ve been taking these assessments for years James. I should be able to walk through them with my eyes closed, but I fail every time. What am I doing wrong?” I had the choke the last few words out through the sob that was rising in my throat. 

Jame’s thumb rubbed gently against my ankle. “It’s okay.” He told me. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Absolutely nothing.” The word themselves didn’t mean all that much, but knowing he was here - hearing the sound of his voice and feeling the pressure of his hand on my ankle - made me feel more grounded somehow. It didn’t feel so much like I was floating out of control through the void when I knew he was sharing this space with me. 

We sat like this for fifteen minutes until my tears finally subsided. When I’d blinked the last of them from my eyes I finally turned to look at James. He was looking at me with concern in his eyes. On his lap he was balancing one of the pink boxes from his bakery. 

“I’m going to be stuck here forever James” I told him quietly. 

“You’re not going to be stuck here forever” he told me firmly. “It looks like I’m going to be stuck with you for a little while longer though” I couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. James was good at making it seem like the world wasn’t ending. I pulled myself up so I was leaning against the headboard.

“What’s in the box, anyway? Did you bring me some consolatory muffins or something?” Concern changed mild surprise. “Do you really not know?” I shook my head, curious. James held the box out toward me and I sat up properly so that I could take it off him. I popped open the lid: inside was a single loaf of plain white bread.

“Oh my God” I muttered, as realisation hit me “I can’t believe that I forgot”. James shifted so that we were sitting side by side.

“Happy birthday, dork.”

We stayed on the bed for a long time after that, tearing off chunks of fresh bread. In all that time we hardly exchanged two words between us. It was enough to just sit there in companionable silence as the sun drifted lazily across the desert sky.


	2. The Art of Revision

There’s a certain precision to the art of revision. To absorb all the information that one can, there must be some careful preparation. First, one must organise their study material as best they can; breaking it down into appropriate sections and having it all neatly arranged for easy reference. Then of course, there is the apparatus; this was a little trickier given Night Vale’s ban on all writing utensils. Most citizens didn’t have much issue with overlooking this rule, but for the sticklers out there there were other options. Carefully soaking a cotton bud with a lightly coloured fluid made for a semi-decent highlighter, and similar methods could be employed for replacing a pen.

Then of course, there is the work station. One cannot be too picky when it comes to preparing a good workstation. You need somewhere that quiet and peaceful, with no distractions that might steal away one’s attentions. For many towns these requirements were met by the local library. But as Night Vale’s Library was NOPE, most citizens made do with some kind of desk set up in their home, or sitting in the street with an eight foot diameter circle of silence drawn around them. Some people liked to have some music playing to drown out the background noise. This was fine, as long as the music itself was not too distracting. Often it was best to have lyric-less music for these purposes, which would not steal the attention with catchy rhymes, clever word play and interesting tales.

As with all children who survived the Night Vale educational system, these rules had been drilled into me at a very young age. They were a useful guide to getting the most possible out of your study time, and I always reviewed them carefully before any study session. Just as I had today, before plunking myself down at a table in James’s Bakery with a muffin while flipping through my reference material

I had not been very popular with my teachers.

It’s not that I didn’t take my study seriously – I had already taken and failed this assessment four times, and each time I had been deadly serious about passing. It’s just that the idea of all that prep work made my head spin. I spent so much time worrying whether I had prepared my work station properly that by the time it was over I could barely remember what I was studying. It was so much easier just to sit here reading through the book, trying to soak in all the information that I could. I retained a lot more this way.

“Hard at work there, dork?” A smile stretched across my face as I turned my gaze up to James.

“Aren’t I always?” James pulled out the chair next to me and sat down in it. Things had slowed down considerably in the bakery now that lunch had passed, and James liked to sit with me during these lulls. He picked up one of the papers that were sitting on the table.

“Why do you need know how to withstand interrogation from dragons? Is that something that comes up often in spy work?” There was little answer I could give to this besides a shrug. Really I had no way of knowing what was a typical experience for agents out in the field; though I suspected that were this particular scenario to arise my primary concern would not be so much maintaining composure under interrogation as it would be avoiding being eaten by a dragon. 

“Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe other countries have pens full of dragons for the purposes interrogating foreigner spies” He reached past me and tore a chunk out of my muffin, still skimming through the paper in his other hand. “You know you really don’t need a fork to eat a muffin.”

“No, really? I wish you’d been telling me that constantly for the last two decades; that would have been useful to know.” That earned a snort from James, almost spraying the muffin over the table. I had always eaten muffins with a fork. Biting right into them felt uncomfortable, and the fork was neater than tearing off pieces with my fingers. Besides, muffins are basically cake when you get right down to it and cakes are meant to be eaten with cutlery. “More to the point, how about you stop stealing back the products that your customers have already bought?”

“Bought would imply that you paid me. This is still basically my muffin; I’m just letting you eat most of it.” I tried to look annoyed, but my mouth wouldn’t stop pulling itself into a grin. God only knows what my eyes were doing; I was pretty sure they weren’t glaring daggers at him as I had fully intended them to. He placed the paper haphazardly back onto its stack. “So when are you going to go sign up for reassessment?”

“You mean my re-re-re-reassessment?” Another snort from James. I turned back to my papers, hiding the dopey grin that was stretching its way further across my face. “Well it’s been six months since the results of the last one, so technically I can sign up again at any time, but…”

“You want to get as much revision time in as possible first?”

“Exactly”

It wasn’t as though I was intimately familiar with the material already, but as with any assessment there was no telling how soon after signing up you’d have to take it. Sometimes months would go by before you’d hear anything. Other times you’d barely have time to leave city hall before you were abducted by the invigilators. Having your notes memorised was one thing, but being able to recall any of it when you were strapped to a chair in a dark room while the examiner screamed his questions at you required a real understanding of the material. 

Just then the tiny bell above the door trilled as another customer came into the shop “Well, I’ll let you get back up to it” James said, rising from his chair “good luck”. He walked over to the counter to greet him, and a full minute passed before I allowed my eyes to drift toward him.

He was discussing today’s cakes with a pretty brunette woman, his hands waving emphatically as he got into the finer points of red velvet. I had known James since we were five, and he had wanted to be a baker since he was eight. Now that we were nearing our thirties he still got the same sparkle in his eyes discussing frosting that he did the first time I told him how much I loved his baking. And it still made me swoon. 

If there was one thing that made me truly glad to still be stuck in Night Vale, it was that I could still be close to James. And if I’m really being honest with myself, sometimes I find it hard to imagine being able to leave him if I ever do pass the assessment. When I was a kid and thought that leaving was just a matter of getting on a bus, I had fantasised about us travelling the world together. 

Sometimes I had daydreamed about us staying in fancy hotels in major cities, thirty floors above the crowd below. Or about seeing great countrysides, covered in grass and flowers and trees and deer who didn’t have real estate agents living inside them. Or sailing across rough oceans and battling pirates. Or lying together under the stars, holding each other hands. 

But I was getting too old for daydreams. I knew James was never going to hold my hand while we talked about a life together. And I knew that if I wanted to have him in my life, I had to be in Night Vale. If I wanted to see the world, I would have to leave James. And although the idea of dying without seeing what was out there broke my heart, I was sometimes very glad I didn’t have to make that decision yet.


	3. An Unexpected Run-In

“Okay, tell me the procedure should you be stranded and on the run from enemy agents”. My hand paused on it’s way to stack beans on the shelf as I considered the question. I had been working at Ralph’s since I was a teenager. It’s not something that I had expected to still being doing when I was in my late thirties, but I have to pay the bills somehow. Besides, the pay was actually pretty decent and it was one of the less disturbing places in town to work if you didn’t mind the people huddling in the vacant lot out back. “If you stop working, Ralph’s going to kick me out again” James reminded me, prompting me back into action. 

“Well, the first thing I need to do ensure that I haven’t left behind any material that could be used against Night Vale. Then I have to try and put as much distance between me and the enemy as I can, and take the first opportunity to contact the Agency. Then the Agency will decide if it’s worth the cost of extracting me, and give me my instructions based on their assessment”. A smiled, but there was a sad note in my satisfaction - there was no denying that I knew the material. But I’d always felt that way in the past too, and I had still failed. I couldn’t let myself get overconfident. 

The silence after my answer lasted a beat too long. Turning my head to James to wear James was seated on the floor beside me, I saw him staring at the paper. He seemed distracted by something. “What’s wrong? Astounded by my brilliant array of knowledge?” Not even a smirk; something was up, and this work could wait a few minutes. 

The cold floor of the supermarket aisle made me shiver minutely as I settled down next to James. He started when I nudged him gently “What’s up, loser?” He had a strange look on his face that was easier to see now that I was eye level with him. Was it concern? Yes, that was it concern. But was there something else there too?

“It seems like this work could get pretty dangerous”. He said quietly. 

“Well, it is spy work. There’s always some risk involved, but this is a worst case scenario. Chances are most assignments will go pretty smoothly”. James nodded, but still seemed perturbed. That probably shouldn’t have made my heart flutter, knowing he was worrying about me, but it did. “I’ll be fine James, really” I assured him, placing my hand on his arm. He turned and smiled at me. It was such a sad smile, I wanted to pull him into my arms and kiss it away. 

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this again?” He asked me. 

“Absolutely, 100%.” Ish. Closer to 85%, maybe. 60% at the absolute lowest. Honestly I was terrified, and fighting the certainty that I was setting myself for failure again. It had been eight months now since I got those results, and I was tired of making excuses to put it off. I had finally managed to convince myself that it was time to sign up for the reassessment, and I needed to put things in motion before my courage to desert me. 

But looking at James now… There was part of me that wanted to give up on it all, settle down in Night Vale once and for all where I could keep him around forever. Or at least until he found someone more interesting to occupy his time. But I couldn’t let James be the reason I decided to stay; he hadn’t asked for that. 

James was still giving me that indecipherable look; part concern. part something I couldn’t quite discern. And still so very sad. He looked like he might say something else, but then his eyes snapped up to something behind me. I turned to see a man in a lab coat standing at the end of the aisle, looking a little flustered to have been noticed. 

“Oh, s-sorry! he stammered, as we clambered to our feet. “I didn’t mean to - um - interrupt, I just- you-” 

“Welcome to Ralph’s!” I exclaimed, perhaps a tad enthusiastically. Every Ralph’s worker had their customer service training ingrained deeply into them. It sometimes had a tendency to kick in and take the front wheel in situations like these. And sometimes when you’re startled by a horror movie. This caused James endless amusement, and I could hear him suppressing a snicker next to me. “Is there anything I can help you with? Customer satisfaction is our number one concern!”

“Um, I-” The man stammered. He was a Latino man, with short hair and teeth and white as straight as the graves in a military cemetery. This must be Carlos the scientist, I realised, the man Cecil had enthused about so much on the radio, and had recently had his hair shorn short by Telly. “I’m sorry”, he got out “I thought I heard- you sound exactly like the radio presenter, and I thought”

“You know, he does kind of sound like Cecil, doesn’t he?” James exclaimed with mock amazement, as a burning sensation crept its way up my cheeks “They sound so similar, it’s almost like he had his vocal chords replaced to sound like him” The flush was up to my ears now. James never missed an opportunity to rib me on this. 

“I was 18 years old, and everyone wanted to be more like Cecil”

“Not everyone got surgery”. 

“Can I do anything to assist you today, sir?” I said loudly, desperate to derail this conversation before it got too far. 

“Um, no” Carlos said “I just thought- well I thought if Cecil was here I might have a word with him. He likes to keep up with the science in Night Vale, you know, and I thought he might like to hear about the experiments I’ve been conducting- for his radio show, you know.” The whole thing came out of him in a big rush of air, and he gasped in a breath at the end of it. He was looking more and more embarrassed by the moment. “but, uh- you weren’t Cecil so- so I’ll just go then”

He turned his cart away, and I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for a fellow piner.   
“Hey, Carlos?” I called after him. He turned back to look at me. “Cecil’s usually hear on Thursdays, if you ever want to talk science while you shop” If it was possible, Carlos looked even more flustered. He mumbled out a thanks before walking briskly away. 

“He seems nice” I said to James “and very handsome. I can see why Cecil likes him”.

“Yeah, they’d make a pretty cute couple”. Before I could respond my watched beeped to signal the end of my shift. Normally this would be a cause for celebration, but today it set my heart racing. 

“I guess it’s time.” I was feeling kind of shaky. Which was silly really, the odds that I was going to have to do the assessment any time in the next week were pretty low. It would probably be weeks yet, maybe even months. Even so, I couldn’t shake this nervousness. James’s hand pressed gently against my shoulder. 

“It’s going to be okay.” he said. I nodded in reply, finding my mouth suddenly too dry to speak. “Come on. let’s go get you signed up”.


	4. Disturbing Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, this chapter is a little longer than the others, and it's pretty heavy on the angst. Very heavy. It's also unbeta-ed, so if anyone spots any spelling mistakes or grammatical screw ups I'd appreciate if you could point it out so I can fix it. Constructive criticism is also welcome, I'm still fairly new to the whole writing deal and I need all the help I can get. 
> 
> As a side note, I realised after writing the third chapter that there is a canonically established means of joining the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency where applications are left in Raydon Canyon. I considered going back and rewriting parts of the story to match the canon, but I've decided to let it go, since it's not a crucial detail.

“You know you’re going to have to go in eventually”. We were standing outside the door to city hall, with my hand resting hesitantly on the handle. I had no idea what was going to happen behind those doors; I might be taken in for testing the moment I was finished signing up. I might be agonising over when I’d be abducted for months. City council might be prowling around outside of their office. The mere thought of the last possibility sent shivers running down my spine. 

 

“I know” I replied. “I know, I’m just- I’m making sure I haven’t forgotten anything really important for the test”

  
“Oh yeah, of course. Mentally reviewing the subject material. While being scared out of your wits”. The spark of irritation I felt at the smugness in his tone was enough to propel me into opening the door and taking the first step through. I was in the building now, I just needed to keep moving forward. “Do you want me to come in with you?” James asked, behind me. 

 

I hesitated before answering; “No, you should go back to the bakery. You don’t want to leave April alone during the lunch time rush.” April was James’s 16 year old cousin. She wanted to raise a little extra money over the summer, and James had agreed to let her help out in the shop for a few days a week. Every once in awhile he’d leave her holding the fort for an hour to get something done - like drive his best friend to an assessment that should really have been routine to him by now - but a bakery cannot be without it’s baker for too long; that’s a really terrible way to run a bakery. Which is why I was not at all disappointed when James wished me luck once more and head off back to his car. It only made sense, after all. 

 

I took a deep breath as his car pulled away, and stepped further into the building. Thankfully the office where I would register for the assessment was not one of those that lay past the City Council’s office. I don’t think my already jarred nerves could take that hit. I walked through a winding passage of halls. I had gotten lost several times my first time here, and had almost ended up registering as an organ donor (that was a really close call, if I hadn’t realised my mistake they’re on hand surgeon would have had me fully dismantled within the hours). Now I took the turns expertly, deftly avoiding any of the more sinister sections of the building until I arrived outside of the correct office. 

 

This was it, I thought trying to steady my nerves. It was silly, really, to be nervous. It’s not like I hadn’t done this before. Really by now the routine should be humdrum to me. But I still felt the same trepidation that I did the first time - the idea that after walking into this office my life would never be the same again, even though it had refused to change so many times before. Even though I could easily take the assessment again should I fail this time. So why did this feel so much like my last chance? 

 

Deep breaths, I told myself. Just take a deep breath and walk in. You can do this. I reached into my pocket to pull out a pin and was about to prick my fingertip with it - the doors required you to bleed to open them - when I heard someone shouting to me. 

 

“Wait! I need to talk with you!” I turned to see a man running down the hall to meet me. He was shabbily dressed; he wore a worn hoodie over a crumbled t-shirt, and his jeans were faded and had what looked like unintentional holes over the knees. HIs hair was a tangled mess on top of his head. I couldn’t remember ever having seen the man before, and I was a little irritated about him crashing into the most important moment of my life - even if it was my fifth time having it. 

 

“Look, I think you have to wrong guy, I’m just here to-”    
  


“You’re signing up to be a travelling agent right? Fifth time trying the assessment?” I was a little taken aback, and not sure how to respond. So I just nodded. “Like I thought, come with me there’s something we need to talk about.” He gestured back down the hall where we had come from. 

 

“I can’t leave, I have to- “ “The assessment will still be there in an hour. And there’s some things you ought to know”. He started back down the hall, but I hesitated. I had waited for months to psyche myself up to retake this exam. If I left now, I might lose all that carefully cultivated courage. But there was something about this guy, and the way he was talking. He made it sound like I was missing some vital information. Maybe something about the assessment? What if there was a reason I kept failing? What if I could end this awful cycle and finally find a way out of Night Vale? 

 

And with those questions buzzing in my mind I followed him back through the maze of hallways and out of City Hall. 

 

\---

 

We sat in the Moonlite All-Nite Diner with a couple cups of coffee, the mysterious man with a slice of invisible pie. We were still sitting in silence; the man had made no attempt to explain who he was, how he knew me, or why he had dragged me away from City Hall and I was getting tired of waiting. He hadn’t even looked at me yet, he was just gazing into his coffee mug as if there was some secret to the future hidden there. Who knows, maybe it was. Stranger things have happened. 

 

After another agonisingly slow five minutes of silence, I was just opening my mouth to ask what the hell was going on when he spoke first: 

 

“Night Vale is a tad strange” He said, still staring down into his coffee. 

 

“Really?” I responded, injecting as much sarcasm as one could conceivably fit into a single, two syllable word. “You don’t say? I’m sure glad that you dragged me all the way out here to tell me that, I would have hated to walk in without knowing it might have totally screwed up my assessment. Well, if we’re done here, I’m just going-”

 

“Sit  _ down _ , we’re not done here”. He finally lifted up his head to look at me sternly. I settled back into my seat and raised an eyebrow at him. I hadn’t always been able to do this, it had taken a month of half hour sessions to train them to lift independently of each other. The single eyebrow raise was a critical interrogation maneuver, no Vague Yet Menacing Agent would ever be caught dead without it in their arsenal. It’s not difficult to learn, it just requires a lot of patience. The hard work payed off when that man dropped his gaze again, granting me authority over this conversation. I allowed myself a little smug glow, as he sighed and continued: 

 

“Look, it’s not just the city, the people are weird too. Even the most normal citizens are weird. And it’s not a problem here, because Night Vale can handle all that weird. The problem is trying to take the weird  _ out  _ of Night Vale. Do you know what happens when you try to take Night Vale weird to other towns?” I really  _ didn’t  _ know. I had kind of assumed that the strange behaviour in Night Vale was just a product of living in a town where the rules were made by strange entities like City Council. Was it possible that there was something inherently strange about the people themselves? Something that would be sustained outside of Night Vale? I shook my head, curious to know more. 

 

“Well we don’t know much about it either. There have been very few incidences, since it’s so hard to leave. But when the Vague Yet Menacing Government Authority first started trying to send people out, they found that the weird had a tendency to… spread. And other towns can’t handle weird the way that Night Vale can. That spread caused a lot of damage to some cities before we managed to contain it”

 

I was dumbfounded. I had had no idea about any of this, it hadn’t been in any of the revision material. “But-” I stuttered “but if the people can’t be sent out without wreaking havoc on other towns, how are there any travelling agents?” 

 

The man sighed, and his shoulders sagged down. The chill of goosebumps prickled at my arms. Something was definitely wrong here. I had a sudden urge to get up and go, to get far away from this man but I needed to hear what he was going to say next. I had to know. 

 

“The game is normal.” The man’s voice was quiet and defeated, like someone who had seen too much for too long. “If you can make them as normal as possible, then there’s so weirdness to infect the town. But to do that, you have to wipe the slate totally clean. Otherwise you might end up leaving some of the weird in there.”

 

As he spoke the horror of realisation dawned on me. “You’re talking about erasing their minds. Their personalities, their… their  _ everything. _ ” The man didn’t reply. Just kept staring at that coffee mug, that ridiculous coffee mug that didn’t have any answers about anything. 

“Bu- but- how can- how can they  _ do  _ that? I mean, how would they even be able to do their job, with everything erased like that? How can the make reports, and interrogate people, and- and-” 

 

“The travelling agents are just empty vessels. Through them the Vague Yet Menacing Government agency can observe the town where they are, and gather all the information they need. If they need someone interrogated, they can send someone out to collect them. A short term trip out of the town won’t do any harm.” 

 

It was a good thing I was sitting down, or my legs might have collapsed under me. The contents of my stomach lurched menacingly, and I fought to keep it from spilling out. I rested my head in a shaking head, trying to wrap my head around this awful new reality that presented itself. I wanted to run screaming back to my old reality, but here I was stuck in this one and it was closing in around my chest. 

 

“I don’t understand. If they’re just looking for people to wipe clean, why do the assessment at all? Why bother making people learn all of that pointless procedure and protocol if they’re just going to scrub it all away?” By the end of the sentence I was yelling, like if I could shout loud enough it would all just go away. 

 

“The assessment is just a distraction. Something to stop people questioning what’s really going on behind the scene. And they give them a chance to scan potential candidates”.

 

“Scan them for  _ what _ ?” 

 

The man sighed and put his coffee down on the table, leaning back in his seat. “The wipes aren’t perfect” He said “They have a very low success rate on unwilling participants - which is really the only kind of participant in a mind wipe. You need a certain kind of person for it to work. Someone with no strong emotional attachments that might persist through the wipe. Most of the people who apply to leave forever already fit that description. But you’re different. You have somebody.”

 

“James.” I breathed, so softly I wasn’t even sure I’d really said it. “That’s why I keep failing the assessment. They can’t wipe me because I’m attached to him.”

 

“You should really thank him some time. He saved you from something pretty awful”. He was probably right. I should have felt overwhelmingly grateful to him, for protecting me from- from  _ this _ . But I couldn’t feel that right then, I couldn’t feel anything. My soul was numb from the onslaught of discovery. Through all the noise in my head a single thought managed to find it’s way through. A hateful, unfair thought that I would despise myself for having later, but right then I was far beyond caring. 

 

I was never going to be able to leave Night Vale. And it was because of James. 


	5. Cans and fruits and labels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just a little one this time around. I had planned to write something longer but I think this works well as a short chapter.
> 
> The next one will be longer, I promise. Also painful. mwa ha ha.

Cans at the Ralph’s are stacked on the shelves three rows high, with the labels facing outward. The fruit and vegetables are stacked neatly into piles - always make sure to replace them as they’re taken, nobody wants to buy the last carrot. Discount labels need to be easy to see, more stock gets moved that way. There are hundreds of little routines that keep a supermarket running, checked and straightened and kept tidy throughout the day. 

Three rows high, labels facing outward. They don’t need to line up exactly; they don’t usually, but they do today. Nice neat piles - keep the good stuff at the front it looks better and good clear discount labels. Straight shelves and well stocked fruit and clean floors and shiny happy customers-

And a ringing phone. My phone. Who else but James? Sweet, kind, intelligent James- the anchor that held me in place.

Guilt twinged at my heart painfully. None of this was James’s fault. Of _course_ it wasn’t. If it hadn’t been for James I would have been scooped completely clean, turned into a hollow shell of a person. No real thoughts, no real feelings, just an empty doll for the agency to play with. He’d protected me, just like he always did.

The phone was still ringing in my hand. I was sitting now, with my back to the shelves. James and I had sat together like this only two weeks ago; it felt like an eternity. I had avoided him after the talk with that man - who _was_ he? I still had no idea - telling him I needed some space. This was the first time he’d tried to call me since then. What did he want? Had something happened? Was he in trouble? Was he just worried about me? I ought to answer the phone and find out, but nervousness and worry and guilt were swirling around me my head and making it difficult to think clearly.

  
The ringing stopped; James didn’t leave a voicemail. Some of the cans on the shelf are crooked, the labels ought to face the front.


	6. Out in the open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another kind of long chapter (at least compared to the others), in which our guys air out some pent up feelings. There will be angst, don't say I didn't warn you. 
> 
> There aren't any baked goods in this one. I'm sorry, I know that's what you're really reading for. There might not be any for a two or three more chapters even. It's part of my plan to break your spirits. Have fun!

This was really unnecessary, I thought to myself. I was sat on the floor of my room, going through all of my belongings. Ever since I was seventeen, I been routinely combing through my things to get rid of anything I didn’t need; I had decided it didn’t make sense to get attached to a lot of things when I was going to move around from town to town. Because of this my bedroom was pretty plain - I didn’t have any posters or knick knacks, and all my books and photos were on devices. Occasionally people bought me bits and pieces that I kept for a while, but I always ended up getting rid of them. It seemed a little pointless now, of course, but the routine was familiar and comforting in a strange way. Besides, I needed to get rid of all of this study and reference material, since I wasn’t going to need it anymore. 

 

A knock at the door startled me, and I called for them to come in without thinking. My mother poked her head around the door and gave me a small smile. 

 

“Hey hun,” she said “James is here to see you”. My stomach twisted into knots at his name. I knew he’d come to see me eventually, and part of me really wanted to see him too. If there was anyone who might be able to make me feel better about this whole mess, it was James. But the other part of me just wasn’t ready to face him, not when I was feeling so guilty about that awful thought that I’d had. 

 

It’s not his fault. I  _ know _ it’s not his fault.

 

Some of this most have shown on my face, because my mother came and sat down on the bed, looking concerned. “Is everything okay, hun?” she asked “You’ve been so down these last couple of weeks. Did something happen between you two? Did you have another fight? ” 

 

“No” I sighed deeply, rubbing my suddenly tired eyes with the heels of my palms. “Not exactly. It’s just that- I can’t- I’ve-” The words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t find a way to explain it that would make sense - not to her, and certainly not to me. Instead it came out as a frustrated groan. A hand rested on my head, the thumb rubbing soothingly across my hair. 

 

“Do you want me to tell him you’re not here?” She asked quietly. There was a long moment silence while I turned all these knotted feelings over in my mind, trying to untangle them a little. I didn’t even realise I was holding my breath until it whooshed out of me in slow sigh. It was no use - I wasn’t going to be able to resolve any of this carrying on this way. 

 

“No.” I told her. “I need to talk to him. Could you send him through?” I didn’t turn to face her, but I could hear another of those small, sad smiles in her voice as she said “Of course”. The bed springs creaked as she got up, and walked out of the room. I took my head out of my hands and knotted my fingers together. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before the sound of footsteps approached the door again, but if felt like forever. I wasn’t ready for this. Was it too late to not be here? 

 

It took a long time for me to look up at James. He had a look on his face I’d never seen before, something nervous and worried. My gut was twisted into so many knots I thought I was going to be sick. More time stretched out between us, with neither of us saying anything. It was James who finally broke the silence:  

 

“Hey there” he said, quietly. Another beat, and then “Is it okay if I sit with you?” I tried to reply, but seeing him in person again was so overwhelming. I went back to looking at my hands and nodded instead; the air shifted a little as he settled down next to me. There another awkward pause before he said “I haven’t seen you in a while.” God, this was awful. I needed to say something; James was  _ waiting _ for me to say something. So why couldn’t I force a single thing past this lump in my throat? 

 

“I’ve missed you.” He said it so softly I almost didn’t hear the way his voice wobbled. I’d never heard him sound so small. And that was all that I could take. All of the guilt, and the worry, and the disappointment all came out in an ugly sob before I started crying. 

 

James’s arms were around me in a moment. He didn’t say anything, just held me while I wept helplessly. It was such a relief to finally let go of everything after three weeks of trying to contain it. Eventually the sobbing slowed to a sniffle, and a more comfortable quiet settled over us. James didn’t take his arms away; He had one hand on my head, fingers working gently over my scalp, and the other was wrapped around my waist. My face was buried in his neck, and I was clinging to the front of his shirt. I still had a lot of feelings tangled up inside me, but they didn’t feel so much like they were about to swallow me. 

 

“Hey, dork” James said softly in my ear. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. 

 

“Hey, loser” I answered, muttering into the skin of his neck. For a while we didn’t say anymore than that. Knowing James, he was probably waiting for me to talk first. There was so I needed to tell him, I couldn’t think where to start. Eventually I came out with the thing that had gnawed at me for three weeks: 

 

“I can’t leave Night Vale, James. I can never leave” My voice teetered dangerously close to breaking again, and James’s arms tightened comfortingly. 

 

“Hey, hey, if something happened with your assessment you can take it again, we’ll just-”

 

“No” I said, pulling away from him “It’s not- I can’t-” I shook my head. “It’s not about passing the assessment James. It turns out it was never was.” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

I sighed again “I can’t explain it all right now, it’s all still too much”. I told him. “I met a guy who told me some things about the agency. It’s not the job I thought it was James. And leaving Night Vale is- it’s just not an option” As I spoke I could feel my throat tightening all over again. I ran my fingers through my hair, stopping at at the nape of my neck. 

 

For a moment James didn’t respond, then he put a sympathetic hand on my back. “I’m sorry” he said quietly. 

 

“I’m never going to leave, James. I’m going to live the rest of my life and die in this town, without ever seeing the outside.” 

 

“I’m sorry. But mayb-” James hesitated, like he was considering whether or not to say something. I tilted my head a little so I could just see him past my arms, which were still cradling my head. 

 

“What?”

 

“Well maybe- maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world.” I lifted my head to look at him properly.

  
“James, this- this was everything to me. You  _ know  _ how much I wanted this, travelling to other towns has been my dream since I was eight. How can you say that as though it’s no big deal?” 

 

“No, no, I know” James assured me, “I’m not saying it’s not bad, it’s just-” He hesitated again. He clearly sensed he was on delicate grounds here, and was choosing his words carefully. “It’s just that staying isn’t the end of the world, you know? I mean it sucks that you can’t travel like you wanted, but we- you can make the best of this. You can still settle down and live a good life here, in Night Vale” 

 

I stared at him, totally bewildered. I couldn’t think what to say, or how to feel. Then through the shock there was a spark of resentment. 

 

“Right,” I said, pushing myself up from the floor “because who cares if I’ve just lost everything I ever worked for, I should just forget about it and carry on with my life as a hostage in this town.”

 

“That’s not what I’m saying” James said, getting to his own feet “I’m just saying that if you really can’t leave, you should focus on leading the best life that you can here”.

 

Anger was bubbling up inside me. How could he talk like this? How could he talk about tossing aside my lifelong dream as though it were silly pastime that I was setting aside? “Well I’m sorry I can’t be as chipper about this as you James, I guess I’m having a little more trouble accepting my life sentence in this tiny, weird-ass desert town in the middle of GOD-KNOWS-WHERE.” My voice was rising with every word, until I was yelling. I saw James flinch away from my sudden outburst, before his face hardened with annoyance.

 

“Sentenced to life? So what, now you’re too good for the town where everyone who loves you lives? I’m so sorry, it must be so  _ awful _ for you to be trapped here with all of us. I can’t imagine how hard it must be, not being able to run away from it all.” 

 

“I’m not trying to run away from Night Vale, it’s-”

 

“Oh  _ please _ ” James interrupted “You’ve been preparing to run away your whole life!  _ Look _ at this place” he swept his arm to indicate the room “You’ve gotten rid of anything personal anyone ever got you, so you don’t have to leave it all behind! You’re still living with your mother, because there’s no point getting your own place when you’re not sticking around. You’ve had a temporary job at the job at the Ralph’s for a decade because why bother trying to do better? I don’t think you could have spelt out ‘I want  _ nothing _ to do with this town’ any clearer if you’d actually had it tattooed on your forehead!” It had been a long time since I’d seen James this livid; it was actually a little scary, but I was too mad to care.  

 

“ _ It’s not about leaving Night Vale _ , I just want to know what else is out there! I want to know how people out there live, in places where writing utensils aren’t illegal contraband and nobody has to bleed on doors! What the hell is wrong with that?” I punctuated the sentence with a swift kick to my bedside cabinet. In the quiet that followed my heart pounded in my ears, until I continued in a much softer voice: “Did you ever even care how important this was to me?”

 

“How can you ask me that?” I wasn’t facing him, but his voice sounded strained and quiet “I have always been there for you; every time you needed help studying, or someone to go with you when you signed up, or things were going wrong and you needed to talk-”

 

“Well I’m sorry I was such a nuisance to you all these years. You must be so relieved it’s over now, and you can stop holding my hand through it.” 

 

There was no answer from James. I didn’t turn to see him leave, I just listened to the sound of the door slamming behind him, and his footsteps disappearing down the corridor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, wow things looked like they were going to end nicely for a minute there, didn't they? NOPE pain and angst, all around. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this latest chapter update, and as always I would really appreciate some constructive criticism, this is only my second fanfic. Any notes/comments would be amazing, but Kudos are just as welcome. You guys are awesome ^_^


End file.
